Berlusconi's holocaust jibe provokes German outrage

Former Italian leader tells supporters at election rally that 'for the
Germans, the concentration camps never existed'

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a news conference at an election campaign event in MilanPhoto: EPA/DANIEL DAL ZENNARO

By Tony Paterson, Berlin

5:57PM BST 27 Apr 2014

Germany’s Families Minister, Manuela Schwesig described Mr Berlusconi’s remarks as “unspeakable attacks” and other leading politicians called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to publicly condemn the former Italian leader’s comments.

Mr Berlusconi was referring to an equally explosive verbal attack on the German Social Democrat MEP Martin Schulz, delivered in 2003, in which he said he could imagine the politician playing a Nazi concentration camp guard in a film.

“I didn’t want to insult him,” Mr Berlusconi said at the weekend, in a reference to his attack on Mr Schulz, “But for God’s sake, for the Germans the concentration camps never existed,” the Italian news agency, ANSA quoted him as saying.

In 2003, Mr Berlusconi said of Mr Schulz, “I know that in Italy there is a man producing a film on Nazi concentration camps. I shall put you forward for the role of Kapo (camp guard) – you would be perfect.”

Yesterday, the deputy leader of Germany’s ruling Social Democratic Party, Ralf Stegner demanded that the heads of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP) condemn Mr Berlusconi’s comments which he described as a “unbearable” for all Germans.

His remarks were directed at Chancellor Angela Merkel who is a member of the EPP and Jean- Claude Juncker, the EPP’s front-runner in the forthcoming European elections.

The chairman of the European Socialist Party, Sergei Stanischev, said Mr Berlusconi’s comments were an “insult to all Germans.”

Mr Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in 2012 and subsequently expelled from the Italian Senate.

He was ordered to carry out community service in a home for the elderly.

However he remains leader of Forza Italia and still has a substantial following on the right of Italian politics.